Woman gets no jail for sex abuse

by: Wayne Flower

From: Herald Sun

October 20, 2011 12:00AM

A WOMAN who had sex with four teenage boys during a sex romp has walked free from court after being handed a suspended prison sentence.

Laura O’Donnell, 20, of Rosebud, pleaded guilty and was convicted in the County Court of four counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and five counts of committing an indecent act with a child under 16.

Court documents reveal she plied the boys, aged 12, 15, and two aged 14, with alcohol on three separate occasions. The first two involved one victim and the third, all four.

Documents show O’Donnell, who had trained to be a childcare worker, assaulted the boys while drunk between February and June last year in Ballarat .

Judge Sue Pullen wholly suspended O’Donnell’s two-year, five-month sentence and placed her on an 18-month community-based order despite her previously breaching a similar order for an attempted robbery.

A report handed to Judge Pullen by a community corrections officer said O’Donnell repeatedly breached her 125-hour order and even failed to attend an assessment for the order she was eventually granted.

The judge attributed her offending to a troubled background, low self-esteem and alcohol abuse.

Crime Victims Support Association president Noel McNamara said the sentence was a disgrace.

“If it was a man on those charges it would have been a different story,” he said.